Foto-© Ben Moon

In der Physik gibt es eine Theorie – die Vorstellung, dass Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft gleichzeitig existieren und dass der Fluss der Zeit an sich eine Illusion ist. Dies ist zugleich der beste Ansatz, um An Eraser and a Maze zu begreifen; denn auf diesem Album sind alle Epochen von Modest Mouse gleichzeitig und nebeneinander hörbar. Es mag das Ende einer Zeitlinie markieren oder den Beginn einer neuen oder vielleicht beides zugleich. Zum thematischen Kern des Albums: Mit The Golden Casket aus dem Jahr 2021 versuchte Mastermind Isaac Brock, nach der Pandemie positive Aspekte zu schaffen. „Bei diesem Album habe ich meinen Filter ausgeschaltet und einfach alles geschehen lassen. Obwohl das jeder verdammte Musiker behauptet, wenn er ein Album veröffentlicht. Ich meine, hört euch mal die ersten drei Minuten eines beliebigen Interviews zwischen einem Musiker und Terry Gross an …“

„Gedanken, Emotionen, Gefühle, all das … man ist wie eine Suppe, und es ist nicht immer einfach, die einzelnen Zutaten herauszufiltern. Ich grüble nicht viel über Dinge. Ich trauere nicht viel. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob ich überhaupt ein Mensch bin. Ich habe das Gefühl, ich sollte mehr Gefühle haben, als ich habe. Aber dann, wisst ihr, singe ich etwas. Und ich denke: Oh, da ist es. Oh – es ist da drin.“

Zudem feiern Modest Mouse in diesem Jahr das 30-jährige Jubiläum der Veröffentlichung ihres Studio-Debütalbums This is a long drive for someone with nothing to talk about. Die Band gilt bis heute als eine von der Kritik am höchsten geschätzten Formationen der Moderne – eine Band, die eigentlich nie so recht irgendwo hineinpasste; und genau das ist der Grund, warum sie eine so immense Bedeutung erlangt hat. Also genug Material für ein Gespräch – unser Interview!

It’s been roughly two weeks since your new album An Eraser and A Maze came out. How do you feel post release? Are you happy with the feedback or did you expect something different?
Oh, I don’t really know. I mean, the way records come out is so different from when I started doing this. Like, it feels very, how do you say, detached. There’s not one moment where it feels like the record came out. It’s slowly been coming out since I started playing it for people, you know?

And then the reviews are coming in slowly.
Yeah, yeah. I try to avoid reading reviews or anything like that just because if the news is too good, then that’ll get to your head. And if it’s too bad, that’ll get to your head. But with this one, I was curious (…). And I just typed it in. First thing that came up, absolutely sh*** on the record. I was like, that’s another reason not to do it.

The album spans 15 tracks and feels quite extensive. When did the first idea of An Eraser and A Maze spark?
I mean, the first song was written before the first song on the last record. And I just kept messing with it. I couldn’t quit fussing with it. And it wasn’t the right thing for that record. (…)

What does your writing process look like? Do your best ideas tend to come spontaneously, or through structured work?
My only ideas come spontaneously. I don’t think I could actually come up with a plan and then sit down and make it happen in a million years. That’s just not how I work. We just kind of start playing around and then eventually you find something that you like and then someone else starts playing something you like. There is no real order to it. Eventually, it locks in and you just get out of your own way and the lyrics fall into place. I’m not sitting down with a piece of music going like now how do I sing to this or what do I put to this… it’s just all let the subconscious write the music.

You produced the record yourself alongside Jacknife Lee, Suzy Shinn, and Justin Raisen — how did those collaborations shape the final sound?
Yeah, I mean, immensely. Like the way it kind of works is I like having an editor. I like having someone who’s like, this is too long. Because I’m prone to being happy with 5 minutes of the same thing. And it’s like, people probably will have had enough of you saying that line over and over again. I’m like, but it’s such a good line. So editorial-wise, they’re good. And then also if there’s any suggestion or opinion that’s given to you, if you have, like, a visceral strong reaction against it, then that’s good too. It’s good to at least affirm that you know what you want and damn it, no one’s gonna change your mind.
But also, Jackknife is extremely, extremely creative in things, as are the other folks, but you’ll give him a song and he will disappear with it and come back with something absolutely different. And either you’re like, that’s great, or you’re like, please leave. He forces you to look at the song a different way and that’s great.

Your album is significantly less poppy than the last one. It’s also sometimes reminiscent of older Modest Mouse. Can you pick one album of your own back catalog that you would regard as most similar, maybe sonically or just thematically to An Eraser and A Maze?
I don’t think I’m qualified to do that. I don’t think that I have the perspective that someone from the outside does, you know… The records for me are as much tied in with what they sound like as what was going on in my life at that time. (…)

Your new record was released on your own label Glacial Pace Recordings. I read that your former label home Epic Records wasn’t 100% convinced when you sent them a few new tracks that were supposed to be on the new album. You then decided to cut ties and release it independently. Was that a no-brainer for you to ensure your creative autonomy?
Well, no. When I gave it to them, they kind of like politely were, we don’t think that we get what you’re doing right now. And I’m like, I don’t think you ever got what I was doing. It just kind of worked. Or sometimes it worked. And you were happy when it worked. But it was the first time they’d ever been flat up to me, straight to me: “We don’t see this having legs.” And I’m like, OK. But they were heavily invested in like TikTok artists (…). That was where their mind was at. And perhaps [there is] not a TikTok in the batch. We’ve been with them a long time. Every time I’d get done with a record, I thought it was the last record on the contract. And all of a sudden someone would like pull out of their sleeve like, oh, look at this, you’re still in contract. I’m like, how? I’ve spent more than half my life here. I didn’t have a bad time being on that label. I didn’t have the stereotypical horror story, major label interaction. I enjoyed the people I worked with. I thought that it went well. I enjoyed it but it was just time to move on. And when I suggested it, they could have said no and just like been, nope, you got to finish the contract. And then they were really cool about it. They were extra cool. So hats off to Epic.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you started Modest Mouse at age 16, 17.
Something like that.

Was it your first ever band project?
No, I was in a band with a guy named Sam Jayne and various different drummers that ended up becoming a band called Lync. But I dropped out of school and moved in with a girlfriend across the country. Also a great idea. And that band did pretty good in the Northwest, like in Washington, in the underground scene, but I wasn’t part of it.

Did you grow up in a musically supportive environment then?
I mean, they tolerated a sh** ton of like really loud, bad playing. I was given a lot of suggestions as to things that I might be better at. (…) They were supportive, but I think they were like, this might not be your calling, buddy. And my family’s not… I don’t know that there’s been a musician really ever in the tank.

You had to endure a few losses in the last couple years. This shaped the feel and sound of the new album. Your song Third Side of the Moon deals with grief. It feels melancholic, reflective, and emotionally heavy. I was wondering, when you write from a vulnerable place, are you thinking about an audience at all, or is it for yourself?
No, I’m not thinking about an audience. I mean, there’s the moment where you have the choice to play it for people publicly. And, I did think about people like Jeremiah’s mom or, part of that song deals with like an ex-girlfriend and another with Sam Jayne – the guy who I started my first band with actually. So, I sent it to their parents before I put it out to see if that felt okay. I think it would be kind of lame for them to hear a song that is obviously about their kids passing away. That’s an audience I think about.

Is there anything about grief that surprised or surprises you?
Yeah, I think I’m surprised that I find myself being kind of callous and I don’t like that because I know it’s in there. I know that I think about these people a lot and I miss them, but also I never go full-bore sad about it and barely did. That leaves me wondering if there’s something wrong with me or when it comes out, how it will come out, if it comes out.

In my opinion, your songwriting is unmatched. There’s not a single song out there that I’ve cried more to than Edit the Sad Parts.
Really? I didn’t play that song for many, many years. Only a couple years ago I started playing it again because I was kind of embarrassed by it. Like it was too earnest or something, you know?

There’s this verse in the song: “Why are you judgin‘ people so damn hard? You’re taking your point-of-views a bit too far”, which is a statement that I feel is extremely relevant today. We’re living in the digital age where hate is amplified (especially online), and artificial beauty and perfection are worshipped as the highest virtues. Do you think that people will strive for rawness and imperfection again, in art, in music, life in general?
Oh, absolutely! That’s like when people are wringing their hands over the idea that AI will be able to just generate their music and it sure will. It sure will be able to. And people like me who are pretty unpolished are going to really want to hear flaws again. They’re going to crave it the same way people got into like ASMR or whatever, just hearing paper crinkle, like needing something tactile. I’m as guilty as anyone else, staring at my screen all the time. Deep inside you crave real sh**! (…)
I want to go back to what you were saying about like the echo chamber of hate. One thing that was echoing in my head over and over again, when I started this record, was the idea that there’s only two things I know of that actually do what nuclear fission promises which is give you more of something than what you actually had – and that’s love and hate. You can make so much more of them with just a little bit of one. So, I’m trying to be more loving, but I don’t know, it’s hard.

You probably think this is silly but I actually discovered Modest Mouse (as well as Death Cab, Rooney etc.) when I was 12 years old – watching The O.C. for the first time, roughly ten years after it first aired. (They did a great job on the soundtrack of the series, in my opinion.) 2000s cult classics such as The O.C. gain new generations of audiences every year – exposing Gen Z to the indie legacy bands of the early 2000s. Do you think a song belongs to its original moment, or does it become something else?
No, I believe that it’s like reading tea leaves or something and that a good song should be useful to you in a different way throughout your entire life. Like a fortune cookie. Some simple statement or idea that you can superimpose over your current moment and find meaning and get something out of it. It should be able to be useful to you in many different ways over a long period of time.

Yeah, even if 20 years or so have passed.
Right, and that’s how they work for me. That’s how I actually managed to continue playing the same songs. Twenty-something years later… Even for myself, when I am singing it, I apply it to whatever is going on in my life then and see what that tells me. And it keeps it fresh for me.
Going back to The O.C., I never saw the episode we were on. But I will tell you that I’ve also never done another TV show like that, right? It’s really crazy how these sets are built. Because, let’s say there’s a locker room and it looks exactly like a high school hallway and then it just ends and there’s another room built on it. It’s just like a series of staircases with different rooms. And they’re all like these totally different vibes, it’s pretty surreal. I was like, this is kind of great. (…) I’d like to see another one sometime because it was weird.

I read somewhere that you were working at a video store as a teenager – are you a movie head?
I didn’t work at a video store. No, I had all sorts of crummy jobs, but that one was my mom’s. She worked at a video store when I was in like middle school. Yeah, she worked as a barista at their coffee shop and it was a really esoteric video store. They had everything. Every terrible movie Andy Warhol made, which turns out is all of them. I watched most of them and he shouldn’t have made movies. Every episode of the Twilight Zone, like they had everything. I watched a lot of crap, a lot of strange stuff (…).

Is there anything you can recommend to me as someone who is starting to improve their film knowledge? Can be a weird movie, doesn’t have to be a classic..
Okay, oh man, I’m so bad at this on the spot. Let’s see… greatest movies that not a lot of people have seen.

I recently watched The Goonies for the first time.
Oh really, you know I live pretty close to where that supposedly took place.

Great scenery!
Honestly, I really like that movie that had Tom Waits in it called Down by Law. A Jim Jarmusch movie. That one’s pretty good. I haven’t seen it in twenty years. And since it’s on my mind, watch all of the old Twilight Zones. It’s really depressing. I binge watched like 8 episodes a day at one point. There’s 4 episodes on each VHS. And I’d watch one or two of them. I was reading and watching that in 1984 and such things at the time. I mean, Clockwork Orange is a great movie, but it’s also really horrible.

I just started watching it a couple of weeks ago. Gotta admit, I haven’t finished it yet.
It’s a hard watch.

I will finish it, I promise. And I’ll definitely watch the Tom Waits one. Thanks for the recommendation.